AN END TO LONELINESS

I can feel her looking at me. The sad and vulnerable act is totally working.

Lonely Boy Blues, eh? It’s kind of a cheesy title, but it may have come from the old Jay McShann/Walter Brown song, in which case nice call-back. Originally published in 1944, this edition of Alan Kapelner’s book came in 1961 with George Ziel cover art. We wondered whether it was a bad sign that Belmont had to range all all the way to the Louisville Courier-Journal for a cover blurb. “Reminds one of Farrell and Hemingway.” Reading that, we thought, “Yeah, we bet it reminded one of Hemingway. And we know who that one was.” We checked the critical assessments and they were amazingly mixed. Kirkus Reviews destroyed this book, dismissing it as “pathetically inept.” But The Philadelphia Enquirer called it “overpoweringly brilliant.” When heavyweights disagree that strongly, something interesting is happening, maybe even something Hemingwayesque. We may take a stab at this one, if we can find it.

Louisville Courier-Journal, Philadelphia Enquirer, Kirkus Reviews, Belmont Books, Alan Kapelner, George Ziel, cover art, literature

Vintage Pulp

November 11 2014

MO BETTER BLUES

For a lonely boy he sure has plenty of company.

Awesome cover art here for Alan Kapelner’s proto-beat novel Lonely Boy Blues, originally published in 1944 and dealing with a cast of NYC oddballs during the 1930s and leading into World War II. By proto-beat we mean it was a precursor to Kerouac and the like—verbally experimental, trying to capture with its prose the rhythm of jazz and bop. It was panned in its day but seems to be enjoying a bit of a revival. The person responsible for this masterpiece of a cover for Lion Books’ 1956 re-issue is Arthur Sussman.

New York City, Lion Books, Lonely Boy Blues, Alan Kapelner, Arthur Sussman, cover art, literature

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

November 6

1935—Parker Brothers Buys Monopoly

The board game company Parker Brothers acquires the forerunner patents for Monopoly from Elizabeth Magie, who had designed the game (originally called The Landlord’s Game) to demonstrate the economic ill effects of land monopolism and the use of land value tax as a remedy for them. Parker Brothers quickly turns Monopoly into the biggest selling board game in America.

November 6

1991—Gene Tierney Passes Away

American actress Gene Tierney, one of the great beauties in Hollywood history and star of the seminal film noir Laura, dies in Houston, Texas of emphysema. Tierney had begun smoking while young as a way to help lower her high voice, and was hooked on cigarettes the rest of her life.

November 5

1937—Hitler Reveals His Plans for Lebensraum

Adolf Hitler holds a secret meeting with Nazi officials and states his intention to acquire “lebensraum,” or living space for Germany. An old German concept that dated from 1901, Hitler had written of it in Mein Kampf, and now possessed the power to implement it. Basically the idea, as Hitler saw it, was for the Nazis to kill, deport, or enslave the Polish, Russian and other Slavic populations to the east, whom they considered inferior, and to repopulate those lands with a Germanic upper class.

November 5

1991—Fred MacMurray Dies

American actor Fred MacMurray dies of pneumonia related to leukemia. While most remember him as a television actor, earlier in his career he starred in 1944’s Double Indemnity, one of the greatest films noir ever made.

November 4

1955—Cy Young Dies

American baseball player Cy Young, who had amassed 511 wins pitching for five different teams from 1890 to 1911, dies at the age of 88. Today Major League Baseball’s yearly award given to the best pitcher of each season is named after Young.

November 4

1970—Feral Child Found in Los Angeles

A thirteen year-old child who had been kept locked in a room for her entire life is found in the Los Angeles house of her parents. The child, named Genie, could only speak twenty words and was not able even to walk normally because she had spent her life strapped to a potty chair during the day and bound in a sleeping bag at night. Genie ended up in a series of foster homes and was given language training but after years of effort by various benefactors never reached a point where she could interact normally in society.